


The Life of Thomas Venture

by LeaperSonata



Category: The Venture Bros
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-09
Updated: 2013-06-09
Packaged: 2017-12-14 09:38:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/835456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeaperSonata/pseuds/LeaperSonata
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a universe where Jonas Junior was born at the same time as Rusty, things are a little different...</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Life of Thomas Venture

**Author's Note:**

> My brother and I posited a universe where Jonas Venture, Jr. had been born separately from Rusty, and had also lived through their childhood - still looking as he does in canon. Obviously his opinion on Jonas would be a little different with direct experience.
> 
> Dashed off drabbles here and there, sketching out a life. I'll work on writing more if there's interest.

"A healthy son, Dr. Venture. What will you name him?" The nurse beams up at the famous superscientist, offering him a squalling, red-faced infant wrapped in a blue blanket.  
Jonas ignores theindications to hold his chil and mugs for a nonexistent camera, famous smile sparkling. "Excellent. Thaddeus S. Venture will follow in my footsteps. Get him and the woman cleaned up for pictures."  
Another nurse speaks up from her bedside. "She's not finished with labor yet, Dr. Venture. There's - another baby coming?"  
Jonas turns around to snap at an assistant. "I want that ultrasound technician fired," then turns back to face the uncertain nurse again, all winning smiles. "Well! So we'll have two to carry on the name."  
"There's something wrong - call the NICU -" The second baby is rushed out of the room for urgent care, but not before his father has a chance to see his shrunken, deformed body, his missing arm.  
The nurse tries to put a good face on it. "What will you name-"  
"Call that thing whatever you like. Prepare my son for his first photo opportunity - the dawn of a new age of Ventures."

*

Tommy pops out into the hallway, waving his good arm for attention as Dr. Venture strides by. "Dad! Dad, I made a-"  
Jonas doesn't even glance in his direction. "Not now, I'm busy. The Guild has kidnapped my son again."  
Thomas wilts behind their father's quickly retreating back and shuffles back into his room to try again to make something good enough to get his attention.

*

"I wish I was you," Rusty groans, holding an ice pack to his latest black eye and wincing as a slight shift in his seat hits different bruises.  
Tommy snorts expressively. "Yeah, I'm sure you wish you were our father's pathetic deformed disappointment."  
Rusty waves an arm to indicate his constellation of bruises and scrapes. "You want to be the public kid? TAKE IT! You want to be kidnapped and beat up every other week, and get shot at and-"  
"At least he cares that you _exist_ ," Tommy snarls, his own pain making him vicious. "The _world_ knows your name, every kid alive wishes they were you, but _no_ , your life is so _hard_. Poor, _poor_ Rusty Venture, star of a cartoon named after him, the apple of his father's eye-"  
"Like he gives a shit about me! I'm not a son, I'm a _publicity stunt_!" Rusty hurls his ice pack against the opposite wall to relieve his feelings, watching it split and the cubes tumble to the ground. It doesn't help much, and now his eye hurts worse.

*

He'd been expecting it, really, but that didn't mean it hadn't hurt.  
I mean, why would the glorious god damned Dr. Venture leave jackshit to the disgraceful freak? _Obviously_ everyone's darling Rusty Venture was going to inherit Venture Industries. As far as anyone who was aware of Tommy's _existence_ knew, he was probably a moron as well as a midget. He was _defective_ , worthless. Rusty fucking Venture was the golden son, the one anyone bothered to kidnap.  
If the Guild of Calamitous Intent had spirited Tommy off instead of Rusty, Jonas probably wouldn't have _noticed_ , let alone cared.  
So Tommy was left with nothing, _really_ nothing this time, not just no attention. He was too proud or too bitter to ask his twin for help, and Rusty was probably too greedy or too bitter to give it if Tommy could have brought himself to ask.  
So he was homeless and shit broke, with nowhere to go, and no one who knew he existed, let alone gave a shit. Maybe he could join the fucking circus, be a freakshow attraction - see the armless midget! Poke it with a stick and watch it cry!  
He wasn't going to give Rusty the satisfaction of kicking him out. Gathering a bundle of clothes and a few other things that were definitely _his_ into a backpack - a fucking kids' backpack, one _Rusty_ had outgrown over a decade ago - Tommy grabbed a handful of protein bars and a water bottle from the kitchen and slipped out of the compound.  
He didn't know where the hell to go or what to do, but he supposed he'd figure it out. Or dying in the attempt was always an option, he supposed. At least then he'd no longer be disgracing the name of Venture. He was sure his father had hoped he wouldn't live this long, that he'd be _defective_ enough to die in infancy.  
It didn't matter anymore. Jonas Venture was gone. Rusty stood in his place. The king is dead, long live the king.  
No one gives a damn about the court jester, even if he's smarter than them all.

*

Tommy tries again, as persuasive as he can manage. "You see, Monarch, if we run the operation like this-"  
"No! My plan is the best way." The Monarch trades an adoring glance with Dr. Girlfriend, who's draped over the arms of his chair in her usual orange bikini.  
Steps sound in the hallway, and Tommy turns to see the henchmen marching into battle-ready position. "Should I get ready to move out?"  
"No, no," the Monarch gestures expansively. I need you to stay here, look after things in the cocoon. We can handle Venture. We need your keen mind here!" Spinning his chair to face the screen from where he'd broadcast his demands to Rusty, the Monarch picked up the remote, then glances back over his shoulder at Tommy and his easel of graphs. "Get out of shot, would you?"  
Tommy opens his mouth to protest, to say something about how he's supposed to be the second, how Rusty is his rotten brother, but it isn't worth it. Dropping his pointer into the grip of his mark two H.E.L.P.eR. robot, he turns and walks out of the bridge, absently tracing the halls back down to the engine room.  
Shoving through his lab and into the small room beond it, he drops onto the bed - barely a pad on the floor, he had too much trouble getting into anything else - and buries his face in his hands. At a questioning beep from H.E.L.P.eR., he looks up and waves a hand at the robot. "Just leave it on the table, H.E.L.P.eR." The robot beeps again. "No, I'm fine, really." Tommy tries a smile that feels more like a grimace up at the robot, who trundles away, deedling concernedly to itself.  
Tommy lies back on the bed and stares miserably at the ceiling. He should have known it was coming, that he'd never be worth being seen with. Behind the scenes, sure, do all the free work you want.  
What good was it if he didn't get to be better than his brother and grind it into his smug god damned heir to Venture Industries face?  
He was going to have to leave again. That was the only possible answer. He was going to have to leave, and build himself from nothing, and arch Rusty all by himsel-  
Wait. Maybe he didn't have to build himself up from _nothing_. Dr. Girlfriend's ex-boyfriend, the one the Monarch had stolen her from, what was his name? Phantom Limb? Surely he hated the Monarch's guts. Maybe he'd lend a hand to a rival.

*

'Second Son challenges beloved Rusty Venture's place at helm of Venture Industries,' proclaim the headlines.  
With a sick kind of masochism, Tommy scrolls down to read the comments. The ones that read 'Dr. Venture had another son?' were bad enough, but the 'Dr. Venture has a brother?' ones were worse. Of course Rusty is the Dr. Venture now. Of course he is. Rusty got packed off to college with a bodyguard to make friends and earn a degree, while Tommy had to filch a credit card and take courses from University of Phoenix if he wanted to learn anything - it wasn't like their father ever deigned to pass down knowledge to the freak, even if Tommy was better than Rusty at science, could have taken the company beyond anything his brother had achieved, if only he'd been given the chance-  
Tommy was pretty sure he'd only been taught to read because it had vaguely occurred to Jonas that it would be embarrassing to have an illiterate son, even one hidden away from the public.  
Tommy had only had _clothes_ because Otto had taken pity on his a couple times, and it wasn't like he _outgrew_ anything, just wore it until it fell apart.  
When he was really young, he'd worn Rusty's hand-me-downs with as much awe as any of the kids who grew up watching the cartoon might have. He'd _idolized_ his twin, but that has long since soured into bitter jealousy, because Rusty was everything he wasn't.  
Jonas had loved Rusty.  
Jonas hadn't even cared enough to give Rusty's twin a _name_. He'd left that to some random nurse, a woman who'd decided that Thomas paired well with Thaddeus.  
At least someone had put some thought into his existence, once in his life.  
No one else ever had.

*

There were no embarrassing baby pictures of him because there were no baby pictures of him. No one had ever found his existence worth recording. Why would they, with Rusty Venture, Boy Adventurer, available? There were no embarrassing childhood stories about him because no one had ever found his existence worth noticing, his entire life. No one had paid a scrap of attention to him. In infancy and toddlerhood he'd been fed and watched by a series of disposable nannies whose names he never learned, while Rusty was fawned over by Team Venture, fussed over by the finest nurses, taken out alongside their father as soon as he could walk. The Guild saw a weakness for Jonas in Rusty and kidnapped him regularly, and Team Venture always raced to the rescue.  
No one had ever kidnapped Tommy because no one cared.


End file.
